Jef Allbright wrote:
>
> Brent Meeker wrote:
>> That raises a fundamental question - should we believe what's true?
>> Of course in general we don't know what's true and we never know it
>> with certainity. But we do know some things, in the scientific,
>> provisional sense. And we also have certain values which, as Jef
>> says, are the basis of our action and our judgement of good and bad.
>> So what happens when we know X and believing X is *not* conducive to
>> realizing our values?
>> Of course you could argue that this can never happen; that it's always
>> best (in the values sense) to believe what's true. But I think this
>> is doubtful. For example, person who is certainly dying of cancer
>> (and we're all dying of something) may realize more of his values by
>> believing that he will live for much longer than justified by the
>> evidence.
>> On the other hand you could argue that one can't just believe this or
>> that as an act of will and so it is impossible to know X, even in the
>> provisional scientific sense, and also believe not-X.
>
> "Tell me Human, what is this Self you speak of, somehow apart from its
> own value-system, somehow able to observe and comment on its own
> subjective experience?"
I don't think I said anything about "self", much less that it is separate from a value system.
>
> But seriously, the values that matter most are generally below conscious
> awareness and can only be inferred. This is why I suggested that
> story-telling might be among the most effective methods for collecting
> sets of values for further analysis and distillation.
An interesting idea. I'd say that action has to be the real test of values. Has there been any study of the correlation between stories told and actual behavior?
>It would be more
> accurate to say that our values drive our self rather than belong to our
> self.
That's fine with me. I'd say the "self" is nothing but an abstraction to collect values, memories, thoughts, etc.
> Evidence abounds of memories (and thus experience of self) being subject
> to a great deal of distortion, fabrication, and revision, and the human
> capacity for cognitive dissonance and confabulation answers loudly your
> question in regard to the handling of conflicting values and beliefs.
So you observe that people commonly believe things they know are false. Do you also conclude that they are generally doing this to maximize the projection of their values into the future? Or would they do better if their beliefs and knowledge aligned? In other words, is there a "should" about belief?
Brent Meeker
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Received on Mon Dec 25 2006 - 02:10:15 PST